Author: Heurgon, JacquesPublisher: Phoenix PressYear: 2002ISBN: 1842125923Binding: Soft CoverBook Condition: As NewSize: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tallDescription: New book, 308 pages. On the evidence of their brilliantly evocative wall paintings, terracottas, bronzes and jewellery, the Etruscans appear to have had a tremendous zest for life with a fondness for dancing, horse-racing, every form of musical activity and sooth saying. The most remarkable inhabitants of early Italy, their kings held sway in Rome for more than a hundred and fifty years. But after the expulsion of the Tarquins at the end of the sixth century BC they began to lose ground to the Romans and their distinctive culture was gradually absorbed into the pan-Italic civilization that Rome established. Professor Heurgon, one of the world's leading authorities on the Etruscans, combines the fruit of moder archaeology with a frech analysis of the literary evidence to reconstruct the lives of the Etruscans.